For the Parents: How old were your kids when they started talking?

In all seriousness, those without kids cannot possibly understand how stressful this can be.  My daughter, just turned 4, had similar problems.  She's in speech therapy now and they are saying she is just about ready to move on. 

At the early stage you are at, I think the hardest part is that you don't know yet for sure if it's speech, hearing, or learning issues, right?  I learned, through my daughter's experience how closely related speech development is to cognitive function. 

My wife is much more knowledgeable in this area and after she gets the kids going this morning I'll call her and ask if she'll log on from home and either PM you or post her thoughts on the situation.  She's the one who takes Julia to speech twice a week and talks to the teachers there and the other parents so she can probably provide you with much better advice than I can.

My son was a late bloomer when it came to talking. He called me "ahdee" instead of mama for several months. He's 18 now, so remembering the exact month is tough...

I would guess he was 12 months when he started clearly using sounds to describe things, but he didn't really start talking till he was past two. He would practice nonsense sounds in his room, but as soon as he was aware we were listening, he would stop talking.  My son talked at home for 6 months before he would speak at the day care. He was clearly hearing us and responded to our directions and comments, but just didn't have anything to say.

Turned out he suffered from many repeated ear infections and was probably not hearing very clearly. Caused him to mispronounce a lot of words for a long time. We never put him in speech therapy. Just gently corrected mispronunciations.

You might want to have your doctor check him over for hearing problems. hearing is a key part of talking. If he's not hearing correctly, he won't talk correctly.

A good day care will work with your son and make sure the other kids don't harass him.There's lots of kids with a wide range of skills. At that age, they aren't really interacting with each other yet anyway.

My son is now 18, a sophomore and NC State and one of the smartest people I know. He still doesn't talk much. He's an Eagle Scout, an absolute stud in math and chemistry, and an all around great kid. Not talking when he was little has not affected him negatively.

That deserves and AMEN!!!!!   

I have heard that speech development is gender related.  I have three daughters so my info may not be applicable to your son.  My daughters started speaking at 8, 14 and 12 months.   Then youngest is studying language acquisition right now.

There is a range of development rates.  Kids don't come with instruction manuals.  You have to make it up as you go along.  Try to stay in the middle the road as far as parenting skills.  Don't overdo anything but go along if your kid wants to overdo something himself.  Kids are the greatest form of entertainment in the world.  Enjoy watching them learn.

TW

Hey, Ty.

Sorry to hear you are stressed out about your son and your wife's plans for his therapy. As you know, I'm not a mom but I'm going to offer my perspective ANYWAY.

Children move at their own pace. Your son is not being stubborn, he's moving at his own pace. When he's ready to start talking, he'll start talking. Why make it a performance issue? Can't it be an individuality issue? Why must he be like all the other kids ALREADY? Rhetorical questions for you to ponder as you evaluate what the best course of action is for you and your son.

I have two anecdotes to share with you. This weekend, I watched a mother trying to force her baby to swim. That baby was around 18mos old, I'm guessing. The child was crying and crying. The mother was doing a good job of terrifying her daughter. I'm sure that the next time that baby sees her mommy pull out her bikini, she's going to start wailing out of fear and dread and her mom's going to wonder why her daughter is wailing for no good reason.

Incidental to this stupid swim lesson, I said to the guy in the next lane (he saw me glaring at the mother across the pool), "That woman is teaching that baby nothing except to be terrified of the water." I told him that I used to teach 3-5 yr olds how to swim and it was so easy; this mother was making it hard on that baby. He said "Well, what do you do when the baby will swim one day and the next won't do it at all? And you know she can swim, she just won't." (WHY ARE WE MAKING BABIES PERFORM?!) I looked at him - he's obviously fit, he's swimming, he must understand the fitness cycle. I said "Do you ever have off days?" He said "Oh. Same for them, huh?" Why are we forcing babies to perform...? I digress again.

The other anecdote involves my nephew. He wouldn't speak when his grandfather was around. His grandfather asked to spend an afternoon with the boy - and took him to a specialist where he told the doctor he thought the boy was retarded or autistic. The boy wasn't going to perform for the grandfather and the grandfather's only conclusion was that there was something wrong with the boy. It never occurred to him that the boy was intuitive and didn't like his grandfather's mojo and just clammed up when he was around. I'm not saying this is what is happening with your son; just illustrating how erroneous conclusions can be drawn by supposedly intelligent adults.

I lied - here's a third anecdote. My oldest sister, the natural athlete, learned to run when she was 9mos old. Imagine the pressure from the parents that her siblings experienced when they (we) were just walking at 12mos. Everyone develops at their own pace.

Does your son seem to understand you? Does he seem to understand what you are communicating? Does he communicate nonverbally? If yes, relax. Let the boy be. Let him progress at his own speed. Don't put the child into performance mode already. Sorry to get preachy (here it comes) but your job is to give him love, a safe environment, and shelter - and let him be. Sounds like there's alot of pressure on the baby and alot of pressure on the parents. No question, you and your wife want what is best for your son. You want to give him every advantage in life. Maybe what is best, at this point, is to let him be? As long as he is communicating nonverbally...

Whatever you do, I'm sure it will be the right thing for your son. Have confidence in yourself and your wife.

to quote a neighbors pediatrician when the parents expressed concern that their 18 month old daughter wasn't talking much:

"Of course she doesn't. You two don't shut up long enough to give her a chance." 

We did the sign language thing too, oldest started using signs at 10 months and the younger one at about 1 year.  I have no idea if it helped developmentally but that wasn't the point. We wanted to give them some means of communicating basic things like 'more', 'cookie', 'eat' , 'diaper', 'binky' etc just to try to keep the screaming to a minimum.

People think they know what their baby wants, but once they got going with a decent repetoire of signs we found out we were wrong pretty frequently.

  My son didn't really start talking till he was about two. He had some words starting at about 1 year to 18 months...Dada..mama...bubba...ca (car)...and he could make the car/truck motor noise really well.

Mostly he made noises and grunted and pointed to get his point across.   We could tell he understood what we said to him and he managed to make his needs understood.

Even with all that though, the pediatrician was worried because he didn't have the amount of words he should have at the milestone months and suggested speech therapy.

My mother (who raised 10 kids) said she thought he just wasn't ready to talk yet and that when he did he would probably be really good at it.

At around 2 years (or a little after) the words started coming out like a fountain. It was really amazing. It was almost like he needed to absorb and learn in his own mind before would use his words. (if that makes any sense).

He is now in 8th grade and on the honor roll.

My daughter started talking at the "right" time...no problems.

This is my experience. I hope it helps.

Good luck!

My grandson was 3 years old and had a vocabulary of about 6 words.  He'll be 4 in July and he's lots better (no speach therapy) but I still think he's pretty far behind what's considered average.  I think it's way too early at 14 months to think about speach therapy...give it at least another year.

Both my kids speech was delayed (they are 6 and 8 now).  The pediatrician recognized that their speech was delayed and made a recommendation we get our kids into a program sponsored by the state for speech therapy.  A speech therapist would come to our house once a week for an hour and work with our kids.  The program was totally free to us.  So check with your state, thay might offer something.

Chris

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR STORIES OF YOUR KIDS........

CAME UP WITH A SOLUTION:   Asked the wife to make him an appointment to get evaluated then let those with the most experience on speech tell us if he needs therapy.  Plus, make sure that if they say therapy is not needed, my wife goes with that decision.   This way, she gets what she wants in at least finding out now with the chance to get what I want in that he may not need it (for now).

After mentioning that to my wife, she said she'll hold off till his 15 month checkup in 5 weeks.

Fair enough for me.

Again, THANK YOU all for your stories.